Wednesday, September 12, 2007
What's next for Hawaii's schools? Metal detectors?
by Larry Geller
I guess our kids are bad, really bad. They must be, or the Board of Education would not be treating them like budding criminals.
Proposed new changes to Chapter 19, the Department of Education's disciplinary rules, that are almost certain to be adopted, will give the few bad ones a whole new universe of ways to bully and intimidate. Students who bullied before will be able to take advantage of these new rules to move into even higher levels of intimidation. And of course, others will suffer from this bumbling campaign of our Board of Education.
According to an article in today's Hawaii Tribune-Herald by Nancy Cook Lauer (not yet on the web), not only would drug-sniffing dogs be introduced in schools, but searches of student lockers with or without cause would be permitted.
And get this: strip searches, too! According to the article, students may be required to remove coats, jackets or baggy pants.
You can bet this will be abused. Imagine a teacher asking a student to remove his/her pants in front of class. Or one student setting up another to be strip searched. And the article points out:
Proposed new changes to Chapter 19, the Department of Education's disciplinary rules, that are almost certain to be adopted, will give the few bad ones a whole new universe of ways to bully and intimidate. Students who bullied before will be able to take advantage of these new rules to move into even higher levels of intimidation. And of course, others will suffer from this bumbling campaign of our Board of Education.
According to an article in today's Hawaii Tribune-Herald by Nancy Cook Lauer (not yet on the web), not only would drug-sniffing dogs be introduced in schools, but searches of student lockers with or without cause would be permitted.
And get this: strip searches, too! According to the article, students may be required to remove coats, jackets or baggy pants.
You can bet this will be abused. Imagine a teacher asking a student to remove his/her pants in front of class. Or one student setting up another to be strip searched. And the article points out:
"I could harass a student by checking their locker everyday," said [Board of Education] member Garrett Toguchi.
Students are clever. For one thing, they won't bring anything in to school that a dog could sniff. But others will bring stuff in and plant it in someone else's locker or backpack. Of course they will.
Adults are giving them a way to have lots of fun. In fact, instead of reducing bullying, the new rules could make whole new ways of intimidation and revenge possible. Imagine: "gimme your lunch money or there will be a ton of pot pushed through the vent in your locker this afternoon."
The proposed new disciplinary rules also cover "cyberbullying" even if no school computer is involved, which is sure to run into constitutional challenges. It would also allow schools to ban items from cell phones to rubber bands (which can be shot at other students--we used to do that when I was a kid).
From the article:
Adults are giving them a way to have lots of fun. In fact, instead of reducing bullying, the new rules could make whole new ways of intimidation and revenge possible. Imagine: "gimme your lunch money or there will be a ton of pot pushed through the vent in your locker this afternoon."
The proposed new disciplinary rules also cover "cyberbullying" even if no school computer is involved, which is sure to run into constitutional challenges. It would also allow schools to ban items from cell phones to rubber bands (which can be shot at other students--we used to do that when I was a kid).
From the article:
The American Civil Liberties Union, the Drug Policy Forum of Hawaii, Drug Policy Coordinating Council and a University of Hawaii sociology professor spoke in opposition. They said the rules may not help, may make things worse and send a message to students that they're not to be trusted.
"Drug-sniffing dogs is an untested, unscientifically sound program," said Katherine Irwin, associate professor of sociology at the University of Hawaii Manoa campus.
ACLU Hawaii attorney Laurie Temple said the cyberbullying rules violate free speech rights, the exceptions to the strip searching rules, along with the locker searches and drug-sniffing dogs, could violate Fourth Amendment protections against searches and seizures and the rules in general, because they are vague, will threaten Fourteenth Amendment due process rights.
The only upside of this that I can think of is that sooner or later kids will learn to plant sniffable substances in the principal's office. There is no end of mischief which these new rules can create. If the dogs finger the staff, maybe the schools will see the folly of distrusting and disrespecting their students. It will be a great lesson for them.
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i'm not sure if i'm the only one who noticed, and it could be because of the fact that i'm a haole kid, but you do realize that metal detectors would not happen in hawaii because of the mere fact alone that the high schools are built with an open setup.
meaning the students could have any access to guns and weapons during any break in classes.
it is asinine to even bring up the idea of metal detectors with schools setup the way they are.
lets look at the big picture, students are getting worse and bullying does happen. in order to prevent things like this, schools are not the ones to put the blame on but the parents and families of those students. if they are not shame enough by their families for doing things like bullying then there is something wrong wit da family.
meaning the students could have any access to guns and weapons during any break in classes.
it is asinine to even bring up the idea of metal detectors with schools setup the way they are.
lets look at the big picture, students are getting worse and bullying does happen. in order to prevent things like this, schools are not the ones to put the blame on but the parents and families of those students. if they are not shame enough by their families for doing things like bullying then there is something wrong wit da family.
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